By Zack Sampson, News Staff
Student Government Association (SGA) senators rejected a proposal Monday to develop a new internally-elected position, speaker of the senate, which would have allowed one person to take over the executive vice president’s duty of chairing meetings.
Senator Nick Naraghi and Comptroller Anthony Golia introduced the amendment at the association’s first full-body meeting of the semester and it was the subject of roughly an hour of debate and questioning. Naraghi and Golia said the executive vice president (EVP) currently has two distinctly different roles in presiding over senate meetings and participating in more traditional outreach with the student body.
“Right now, we could elect someone who is a great administrator but not a good chair or a great chair and not a great administrator, and that just means that we’re losing out as an association,” Naraghi said while proposing the amendment to senators.
Electing a speaker of the senate would solve this issue by removing the EVP’s responsibilities as a presiding officer, he said. Under the proposed system the senate could instead elect the best candidate for chair from the entire organization, he said, even if it was in fact the EVP or just a regular senator.
Many representatives saw significant flaws in the proposal however, and it was voted down 15-28 with four abstentions.
During debate about the proposal, Senator Mike Splain said he “saw more holes in this than a jungle gym,” as the amendment did not specify if the new position would be compensated or a part of the executive board.
Elections Chair Taylor Cotter followed by saying the change would also take too much away from the EVP position.
“For lack of a better term, I think that this would essentially castrate the position of the EVP,” she said. “I think that it would render it totally useless and we might as well eliminate the whole position of the EVP if this passes.”
Other people raised objections because the amendment would open up the role of presiding officer to senators not on the agenda committee, which consists only of the executive board.
“To have somebody handed an agenda produced by a foreign entity, and then having to rule on questions of what is brought before the body and why they are put on the agenda and what their purpose is — it can’t be successful, it can’t work,” SGA President Mike Sabo said during debate.
After the meeting, Golia said he was disappointed the proposal was ultimately rejected without many senators attempting to make amendments to it.
“A lot of people said they liked the idea, and they had concerns about a single part of it but nobody stepped up to say what those concerns were or make amendments,” he said.
Though he said SGA’s current EVP, Will Pett, has done a great job in the position, Golia said the association “might not be so lucky” in future years. He said senators “can’t bank on” candidates being equally capable of serving as a presiding officer and general administrator.
Naraghi also said he was disappointed the proposal failed, but added that he plans to bring up a refined version Dec. 5 at SGA’s next full-body senate meeting.
